Steps to Take in Excel Prior to Working with Data

Once you have exported a report to Excel, use the following steps to help you prepare your data for analysis.

1. Click Enable Editing if prompted when you open the file.
2. Select all of the rows above the blue header row and delete them from the spreadsheet. Once these rows are deleted, your blue header row will now be the top row in your spreadsheet.
3. Select the entire spreadsheet by clicking on the triangle in the top left corner of the spreadsheet.
4. Click the drop-down arrow next to Merge & Center and click on Unmerge Cells.
5. Depending upon the report you are running, you may now have some blank columns appearing in your report. These should be deleted.
6. If you want to space out your columns to better see the data, you can always click on the corner triangle again to select the entire spreadsheet, then either double click between two columns or drag the mouse between two columns.
7. You are now ready to sort/filter your data by clicking on the Data tab at the top of the spreadsheet, then clicking on either Sort or Filter.